Posts tagged ‘Donald Trump’

On January 18, less than two days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the US Customs and Border Protection released a 30-page general notice which could eliminate exemptions to the Jones Act and mark one of the most significant changes to domestic maritime law in decades.

The Jones Act requires all vessels transporting goods between US ports to be US-flagged, US-built and majority US-owned.

With the Donald Trump presidency reaching its 50th day at the weekend (who said it wouldn’t happen?), we take a look at the impact the current administration — which shocked the world in November with a surprise election victory — is having on gold prices.

Although gold has slipped sharply this week as certainty of a March US rate hike increased, the precious metal is still up over 5% year-to-date. It is even more impressive given the strength of the dollar, while equities continue to add broad gains, with both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average clocking record highs.

A global transition away from oil and gas is well underway as booming renewable energy sources and electric cars portend major changes for the industry.

Last week BP outlined the challenges ahead, but the company’s crystal ball has yet to focus on the disruptive potential from what may be the biggest paradigm shift in manufacturing since the advent of the factory.

This blog post was written in collaboration with John Kingston, the Director of Global Market Insights for S&P Global.

The U.S. still imports a lot of crude oil. It also now exports crude oil. It’s also the world’s biggest exporter of petroleum products.

So any change in the country’s corporate tax system that has an enormous shift in the tax treatment of imports and exports is going to have the potential to impact oil flows, and by extension, oil markets.

Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday to You” to US President John F. Kennedy in 1962 is famous. What is little known is that her rendition was partly about the steel industry.

The mills had just announced a $6 a ton price increase, about 3.5%, despite a tacit agreement with Kennedy that there would be no such move. The Kennedy administration was worried about inflation and had just intervened to help the industry settle a no-wage-hike contract with the United Steelworkers union.

During the election the now President-elect Donald Trump made much of “making America great again” and bringing manufacturing back to America. He singled out steel in particular as a sector that had been destroyed by imports, especially from China, saying during the televised presidential debates that China was dumping steel and “killing our workers.” In January this year Trump even suggested that he would put a 45% tariff on Chinese imports in part to rescue US manufacturing.

There is perhaps no better reminder that the US presidency is a position of extraordinary power. Since the victory of US President-elect Donald Trump last week, businesses and governments have been working overtime to try to discern exactly what his presidency might mean for a range of important policy areas.

Across the world, every campaign statement, interview, tweet and early appointment by Trump’s transition team is now being carefully examined for clues as to how the newly-elected Republican will act once he moves into the White House.